


Figure You Out

by gonnafeelgood



Category: Bandom RPF, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Psychic, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-31
Updated: 2007-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonnafeelgood/pseuds/gonnafeelgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Bob thinks he wants to get into people's heads. He changes his mind on the day that he actually does.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Figure You Out

It's not strange when Bob watches Gerard onstage. Of course he watches. That's the point of Gerard on stage, flouncing back and forth, straddling Frankie, thrusting his hips toward the crowd. Gerard in front of an audience is _built_ for watching.

Bob thinks, though, that it might be strange when he watches Gerard offstage. Because, really, Gerard shouldn't be nearly as engrossing when he's sitting with his hair hanging in his face and scribbling in yet another sketchbook.

Gerard offstage is exactly as awkward and dorky and endearing as he has always been. He's awesome, but not exactly enthralling.

But it's not a thing. Bob just likes watching. It helps him figure people out, get inside their heads.

*

Bob thinks he wants to get into people's heads. He changes his mind on the day that he actually does.

*

The day before Halloween, Bob is woken up by the sounds of every fucking one of his bandmates murmuring. It's weird. It's also fucking early. Bob is usually the first one up – even though he doesn't get up until after noon – you can't pry Mikey or Gerard out of bed before three pm on a good day and he's pretty sure he heard Frankie and Ray having a Halo marathon until the early hours of the morning.

Ray's normally a pretty taciturn guy unless you've gotten him started on his favorite guitars, but this morning? He's not only the loudest, he won't fucking SHUT UP.

_What if I'm a character in someone else's dream?_ he hears Ray ask. _I could be; it's not like I'd know unless it was a lucid dream. And really, this would be the moment it would start being a lucid dream. I wonder if that would mean that things change. It doesn't feel like anything has changed, but it probably wouldn't if I didn't have independent consciousness. If I don't have independent consciousness, do I cease to exist when this person wakes up? If I ceased to exist, I would be negative consciousness held within positive consciousness._

"Ray," Bob hisses. "Seriously, shut the fuck up."

_Maybe if I understood more about dreams. I bet if I learned more, I could figure this out,_ Ray continues. _I should pick up that book that Ross e-mailed me the link to. It was … Young? Chung? Jung? Whatever, it's in my e-mail. But if I am a figment of someone else's consciousness, would that consciousness allow access to knowledge that would verify that I don't really exist? I doubt it. So, probably the book wouldn't help, anyway. Still, I could freak Gee out with explanations of dreams for, like, years. Though I guess that might fuck with his therapy … I'll call his therapist and check…_

"Ray," Bob raps on the edge of the bunk before pushing the curtain open to see Ray bouncing his head along with the music coming out of his headphones.

"What's up, man?" Ray smiles as he pushes his headphones off his head. _Bob's never up this early._

"Dude, it is ass o'clock in the morning. People are trying to fucking sleep here," Bob growls, his most intimidating face on.

Ray doesn't look intimidated. Bob's faces never work on these guys.

"Yeah," Ray says, checking the connection on his headphones. "That's why I had headphones on. Sorry, did the music wake you up?"

"No, you were … dude, you were talking," Bob is feeling increasingly like a crazy person.

_I wasn't talking._

"I wasn't talking," Ray says, sounding concerned now.

"Yeah, you just said that!" Bob growls.

_Said what?_

"Said what?" Ray is reaching toward him with a hand out to check for a fever or something.

"You just … you just did it again! Stop fucking with me, man," Bob's voice is getting dangerously low.

_Wait …_ Ray's eyes widen. "Oh my god," he breathes. "I read a comic about this once."

"What?"

Ray points at his lips to emphasize … something. That they're not moving? He leaves his hand there when Bob hears: _You can READ MINDS!_

"_What?_"

*

They go to Worm first, despite Ray's objections that this is "seriously so cool, Bryar." Bob is not amused. He can barely separate out the thoughts from what people are saying. It's not like the people he spends his life around aren't loud enough out loud – he doesn't need to be in their heads directly.

It's not nearly as awesome as it sounds.

He's not sure why they are going to Worm, except that Brian and Worm are the ones that take care of shit, fix things. And, okay, maybe they went to Brian _first_ first, but his ear still hurts from Brian screaming at him and promising that he will be screening his calls until after Frank Iero's goddamn birthday of stupid practical jokes.

"Psychic, huh?" Worm raises an eyebrow that clearly says, "You better not be fucking with me." Bob is very familiar with that eyebrow.

"Swear, man," Ray says earnestly, his hair bobbing as he nods his head. "It's amazing."

_Prove it to him!_ Ray thinks excitedly. So damn weird, because he's thinking it at Bob and Bob could have gone happily for the rest of his life without knowing what it's like to have Ray Toro's thoughts directed at him.

"I fucking hate it when you do that," he snaps at Ray, rubbing a hand over his head.

_What the hell?_ he hears from Worm.

"He's thinking at me," Bob says wearily. "Seems to think this is the funniest shit ever."

_I didn't …_ Worm starts, his face completely unreadable.

"You didn't say anything, but you thought it," Bob muttered, dropping to the ground.

_Huh._

"Huh," Worm says, face still implacable. "Well … it is almost Halloween …"

"The fuck does that have to do with it?" Bob grumbles.

"I don't know, dude. It just sounded like something to say," Worm shrugs.

*

Apparently, Worm does not have a _De-Psychic-ing Your Band For Dummies_ manual with a "Drummers" section.

*

Bob has to tell the guys, then. He's not thrilled about it since it'll probably lead to more comic book references and, if Frank has his way, Googling *NYSNC fanfiction.

"So … you can hear our thoughts?" Gerard says, his eyebrows raising. "Like … all of them?"

"Yeah," Bob says.

_Oh god._ Gerard thinks. _He can hear what I'm thinking, everything I'm thinking. Don't think about sex. Don't think about sex. What am I going to do? I think about sex all the time! Sex! Help! Blue and yellow is cyan. Red and green is black. Seven times eleven is eighty. God! Naked women. Naked men! Naked Bob! Oh my fucking _god_!_

Bob raises an eyebrow back at Gerard.

"Actually," Gerard says. "… bye!" He grabs his sketchbook and bangs open the door, tripping over a stray pizza box in his hurry.

_It would be kind of cool to be able to read minds._ Mikey muses as he restarts his game with barely a spare look for the rest of the room. _Bob could be like Professor X in our X-Men team. I want to be Mystique. That would be so cool to be able to take on whatever powers or personas you want to. I guess that would be kind of hard since we're obviously the X-Men and she's working against the X-Men. Well, sometimes. I think that she's a double agent now, though. I need to reread those books. I'll make them stop at a comics store on our next day off._

"Huh," Mikey says.

_Is this going to fuck up my birthday?_ Frank thinks.

"Is this going to fuck up my birthday?" Frank whines, pouting at Bob and fidgeting.

*

After an entire day of hearing everyone's thoughts, Bob's even more over this mind-reading crap. He can't control it, he doesn't get to shut it off, not ever. He has to hear everyone, from the waitress in the restaurant who totally recognized them (she played it very cool, so Bob made Gee sign a napkin and leave it with the tip as a thanks) to Jake the Guitar Tech (who had some very disturbing thoughts about Mikeyway's hips).

He was wrong. He doesn't want into these people's heads. He wants out.

Bob thinks that he has already experienced the most annoying part of this psychic shit. He's already trying to block out Mikey's constant inner monologue about everything from Doritos to Anthrax, and Ray's philosophical musings, and Frankie overlapping his words and thoughts since the dude has absolutely zero verbal filter (which is really kind of creepy). Gerard is running from the room any time Bob walks in and … whatever. It's not like he cares or anything.

But no. As annoying as his bandmates are and as exponential as that irritation grows when he hears all of their crazy, stupid-ass thoughts, it turns out it can get much, much, much worse.

Bob isn't sure if they think that he's already asleep or what. He did retreat to his bunk a few hours ago, growling at Ray along the way after Ray just forwent speech entirely and _thought at him_ to fuck with him in the middle of a video game, for fuck's sake. But he hasn't been sleeping, as much as he desperately wishes he could be. His iPod helps drown out the more distant thoughts and, fortunately, the rest of the guys had gone to get food somewhere. So it had been relatively quiet and he had been half-dozing.

Had been. Until they had apparently decided that it was safe to come back and go to bed. Come back, go to bed, and fucking jerk off like fucking assholes.

a flicker of Jamia's thigh, her hands moving down a tattooed stomach

full lips with a loop on the right side, blonde hair just brushing the edge of view

_ohgod, right there, ohgod, ohgod, so fucking beautiful_

5 o'clock shadow scratching between shoulder blades, big teeth biting the curve of ass

_shh, shh, shh … can't let them hear_

snatches of songs, the melody humming behind thighs and hips and stomachs, vibrating just right …

Bob groans. It's … so weird. Yeah, he knows that they jerk off in the bunks – they're in a band, not dead. But everyone's been pretty good about muffling and the basic bunk etiquette of pretending not to hear little gasps and groans. They could ignore it more or less (and Bob is not thinking about how hard he gets when he hears a particular gasp) and move on. But he can't ignore this, can't stop seeing flashes of images and smells and songs (songs? What the fuck, Toro?).

arching arching arching, shaking with want, _can't yet can't yet_

tongue circling in and in and in, licking a long slow stripe up

deep baseline, shaking from the feet up

small hands jerking in time with a mouth moving over cock, tongue pulsing

strong thighs, wide smile, so much so much

calloused hands holding shoulders against the bed, demanding, "be quiet"

_ohgod ohgod, jesus fuck ohgod_

Bob doesn't jerk off. He can't. It's all too loud and confusing and disjointed, too much fucking beautiful and sexy and kind of confusing and even though his dick is into it, his head knows it's wrong.

Almost an hour later, they all seem to have drifted off to sleep, their thoughts flickering in and out, quieter.

Bob buries his head under his pillow, hands shaking and dick harder than it's ever been.

_I better wake up fucking normal tomorrow._

*

Bob doesn't wake up normal.

If anything, he's gotten more sensitive, picking up the thoughts of people walking by the bus and snatches of song that Mikey is humming underneath his top layer of thoughts.

Gerard has stopped running every time he sees Bob. Bob's pretty sure someone (Mikey) talked to him last night while they were at dinner because all he hears from Gerard is this seeping _guiltguiltguiltguilt don't want Bob to feel bad_ over and over like a damn mantra.

It sucks, too, because Gerard is the one whose thoughts hurt the least. Maybe it's the therapy or that he's already lanced so many of his mental boils, but his thoughts are less desperate than a lot of other people's. His mind sounds like a low hum to Bob, like the rumbling of the bus that nobody hears anymore.

Bob has to ask them to take Frankie's birthday party somewhere else. It sucks. Frankie's pouting at him with his face and his thoughts as he pulls on his skeleton gloves, Mikey and Ray are still rambling, and Gerard is worried. Bob waves them tiredly off the bus, hoping that the promise of Chuck E. Cheese will be enough to keep Frank and his birthday entourage off the bus for a few hours.

His head fucking hurts.

*

There is a meet and greet before the show that day. They tried calling Brian and explaining why Bob couldn't go, but Brian just said something about "Fucking Halloween practical jokes" and hung up on them. He's still not answering his phone.

"Thank so much, Bob. Your parts on this are just amazing and I'm a drummer, so, you know," a girl with choppy bangs and pigtails gushes as Bob signs her copy of _The Black Parade_. Her fingers are pressing at the pulse point in his wrist, her eyes are wide, and her chest is pushing forward. Bob's not stupid. He also figures that she might, maybe, possibly be eighteen. So. No.

"You've been looking really good lately," the girl says, obviously not catching much from his body language. Like that he'd like her to go away.

_Moron._ Gerard thinks, derision dripping from his thoughts. _Bob always looked good._

Bob turns his head slowly and looks at Gerard, a blush spreading slowly over his cheeks.

The girl has finally stopped talking and is just staring at both of them now.

_Oh my god._ she squeals in her head. _Are they_ fucking_? That would … oh, that is the hottest thing in the world._

Bob can't quite keep his eyes from widening.

*

Trying to avoid people as much as possible, just getting by … it's working. It's working badly, but it's working until one of the newer merch girls walks by the bus at their next venue.

_Maybe tonight._ he hears in a vaguely familiar despondent female voice. _It's not like anyone would notice. I've been clean for so long, I can do it just once now._ And then, somehow, he feels this long, slow burn that he just knows is the memory of heroin.

It's when Bob is looking around, trying to match the voice to the thought, that he thanks whatever is fucking with him like this that mental voices sound like verbal voices to him.

It's only after he's found her and talked to her for a while (she's lonely, she doesn't know a lot of people on tour. Bob takes her over to some of the techs that have been with MCR since the beginning, people he's teched with, and asks them to show her around) that Bob comes back to the bus and collapses on the couch in the front lounge.

He hears the humming of Gerard's mind before he sees him.

"Bob?" Gerard's voice and thoughts broadcast concern. "What's going on?"

Bob shakes his head and puts an arm over his eyes. It's too much. He can't … he can't. He can't say it, he doesn't want this, he just wants to go back to watching people and trying to figure them out. Figuring them out, for real, all the time … no. It's too much.

Gerard's worry is like a wordless, long, low hum in the back of Bob's head.

It's okay. It's not like being alone, but Bob's not sure that he can be alone anymore, anyway. He can hear people everywhere now. He can hear them and he wants to help them but he can't and …

Gerard lays himself silently on the couch alongside Bob. Gerard's half on top of him, his hand splayed carefully across Bob's chest. The humming reverberates through Bob's head. Gerard is trying to keep quiet.

It's not working, but it's nice of him to try.

*

They have to cancel the show that night. Bob just … he can't even imagine going out in front of thousands of people, of having the brunt of their thoughts and hopes and dreams and love focused on them.

He has a lot more sympathy for Gerard now. Gerard has that happen every night.

*

They're in a hotel and Worm has managed to convince Brian that they need the entire floor. He hasn't bothered to explain that it's because of Bob's Freak Psychic Powers and Brian isn't asking. It's better here – Worm put the other guys at the other end of the hall and the hotel is pretty empty this time of year. Bob can hear people, but it's more like the murmurs you hear through doors than screaming in his ears.

Bob hears the humming under his skin before Gerard's specific thoughts come through. He can also hear footsteps, barely, down the hall.

_…r, I wonder when he can hear me? This has to be far enough away. God. I just … it's too much to … I can't …_

Bob smiles a little, his face still buried in the hotel pillow. Even in his thoughts, Gerard is interrupting himself.

The specific thoughts quiet, like Gerard has learned to keep his brain as still as possible. Bob's kind of impressed.

When the knock on his door comes, Bob calls out a greeting and Gerard keys his way in (they all learned to carry keycards for each others' room the last time Bob slept through his alarm and almost made them late for a show).

"Hey, Bob," Gerard says. _I hope it's …_ "You doing okay?"

Bob shrugs, turning over on his side so he can see Gerard and his mouth. This shit is even weirder when you're not sure if the person has said or thought what you just heard.

"Coping," he manages.

_Fuck._ "I'm sorry," Gerard's face is full of concern. "I can ..." he motions toward the door.

"No, it's okay," Bob says, putting a hand out. "You're quieter than most of them."

Gerard laughs a little, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "God, you must be around some loud motherfuckers."

"You have no fucking idea," Bob laughs despondently.

Gerard walks over to the bed, his hesitance resonating back and forth across the room.

_Does he always feel like this, so … careful? So unsure?_ Bob wonders. _Or is it just me? Just me now?_

Awesome. Maybe his new stupid superpower could create additional awkwardness with his bandmate. That would be perfect.

Gerard sits down on the bed, right in the curve of Bob's body. He tilts his head as he looks at Bob and then turns his head toward the wall. _I just … don't want to …_

Bob furrows his forehead. Gee doesn't want to what? He reaches up, his hand brushing Gerard's shoulder as he reaches for his face, turning it toward him. It's when Gerard's breath catches and a wave of _want_, want that is not his, washes over him that Bob gets it …

"Oh," Bob says, his eyes widening.

_fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_. Gerard is shifting his weight to _get away, run, oh jesus, no, he wasn't supposed to …_

"Gee," Bob's hand, bigger than Gerard's new skinny shoulders, is careful. "Gee. Don't … stop for a second, okay?"

_I'm such a fucking asshole, all I can think about is … and it's taking advantage and I … he wasn't …_ "You weren't supposed to know," Gerard mumbles, curling as much of his body as he can away from Bob. _he's going to hate me I can't I don't know what fuck he can't quit he can't leave what if I fucked this …_

"God, stop thinking," Bob orders tightly, his hand still curled around Gerard's shoulder.

_Sorry._ Gerard sighs in his head.

"I didn't know, okay?" Bob scrubs his other hand over his face. "It's not like … look, you didn't fuck up."

"Okay," Gerard says and Bob doesn't have to be psychic to hear the doubt in that one word.

"Gee," Bob says, hoisting himself up a little and pulling Gerard down next to him, curved into Bob. "You didn't fuck up. Now, can we just … not … talk? For a while?"

_God, of course, his head, I'm such a …_

"Dude," Bob says, stroking a patch of skin behind Gerard's ear. "Don't think either. Let's just … not. For now."

Gerard nods, willing himself into the lower buzz that Bob is beginning to find comforting.

It takes a while, but they sleep.

*

It's that time between morning and night when Bob wakes up again, an unfamiliar body but a familiar smell burrowed next to him. He curls his arm around the warmth at his side without thinking, burrowing his head in …

Gerard.

Okay.

Slowly, Bob half-remembers Gerard coming into his room to check up on him and the weirdest not-conversation he'd had in his life. Gerard's dreams are mumbling in the back of his head, mostly colors and sound that can kind of work as a mental screensaver, thank god.

He's still piecing together what exactly happened last night when he feels Gerard shift and turn over, staring at him.

_Wha…oh_

"Um," Gerard says.

Bob thinks: _Fuck it._ and says: "Why wouldn't I want?"

Gerard's thoughts come to a screeching halt as his breath catches.

Huh. Apparently Gerard's speechless is also thoughtlessness. Well. Good to know.

Bob leans into the small space that separates them, his lips just above Gerard's. "I watch you all the time, you know," he confides, his words skittering across Gerard's face. "I just don't get you."

Bob realizes just after he says it and right before their lips crash together that it's true.

*

At some point, they've managed to lose most of their clothes and all of the blankets. Bob is shrugging out of his t-shirt and Gerard is pulling off his socks when the rapid stream of thoughts that had managed to be pushed into the background speeds up and moves back to the foreground. _…can'tdothis … can't believe that he would – why is he looking – fuck, the thoughts thing … but what if I …_

"You're not going to fuck this up," Bob says, pulling Gerard back to him and pinning him to the bed.

_Everyone says that, but I can. I do! History supports that I do and I always fuck it up and they don't talk to me and I can't handle you not talking to me._ Gerard is shaking a little.

"Gerard," Bob breathes, his larger body solid and hovering a little. "Stop. If you fuck it up, I won't."

_Well. Yeah._

Taking advantage of the momentary calm, Bob leans down to bite at Gerard's lips and lick his way into his mouth.

Bob's always heard about the sex where everything is perfect. Okay, maybe his mom told him about that love (bitterly) and he translated it to sex, but either way he's kind of always expected that at some point, he'd have sex with someone where everything just fit. It's not that Bob is some blushing virgin, but he keeps expecting that one of these times, this is going to be that kind of easy, seamless sex.

This is not that sex.

Gerard's thoughts never stop racing, amazement competing with disbelief always being overwhelmed by pure _want_. Even without the mind-reading, Bob knows that he'd be able to read it in Gerard's gasps and moans and the way his hands skitter over Bob's skin.

The mind reading actually makes it harder, sometimes. Bob can't always tell what Gerard's saying and what he's thinking and it leads to heads knocking together and hands tangling together when they are meant to travel up and down skin.

It's not perfect. Cocks don't perfectly align, it takes Bob five minutes to find the lube, Gerard squeals and jumps when Bob rims him. It's awkward and weird and there will be bruises tomorrow.

Bob can't wait.

*

They wake up in the real morning this time, their bodies sore and the world blessedly, blissfully quiet.

"So," Gerard mumbles, his breath ghosting across Bob's face. "You okay? Can you hear thoughts?"

Bob closes his eyes and listens, finding … nothing. "No," he says. "Nothing."

"Well, it's not Halloween anymore," Gerard looks up at him, smirking. "Sure, you would lose this, just when I really wasn't thinking about sex."

Bob runs his hand along Gerard's side, scraping his nails a little against his hip. "Liar."

Gerard pulls himself up a little farther, his lips inches from Bob's. "Prove it."

Bob does.

**Author's Note:**

> Bob/Gerard, written for [](http://missmollyetc.livejournal.com/profile)[**missmollyetc**](http://missmollyetc.livejournal.com/) for the Turning Tricks or Treats [](http://community.livejournal.com/bandslashmania/profile)[**bandslashmania**](http://community.livejournal.com/bandslashmania/) fic swap. She asked for Bob/Gerard, angst and happy endings and porn, and something based off of this quote: "If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years." - Bertrand Russell.
> 
> A scene of this was strongly-inspired by "Earshot," an episode of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ where Buffy wakes up suddenly psychic.


End file.
